Brent Cobb was tired when he picked up the phone for an interview with Taste of Country earlier this month.

He was running on about two-and-a-half hours of sleep after a weekend run of shows and a six-hour drive home to Georgia, where he then woke up early to make pancakes for his two kids.

You don't put two decades and six albums into the road dog life if you don't really love it, but still, the grind of touring will wear on anyone after a while.

Cobb falls into a specific tier of artist in the country music scene. He's respected, even revered in Nashville songwriting circles. He's written for Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert and Kenny Chesney, and been on stadium tours with Chris Stapleton and Luke Combs. Tyler Childers and Colter Wall once opened for his shows. But Cobb himself has never really hit that level of superstardom.

"I have been at this for, like, 20 years and I have seen many a-scenes come and go, or appear out of thin air and grow into something massive," he says. "... And for whatever reason, I have never had that moment of — pop — explosion."

He also has yet to graduate to a tour bus, hence — at least, in part — the weariness after his weekend run.

"I'm still in a van and trailer most of the time with the same band," Cobb points out.

He's not bitter about his place in country music. "My lights are on and my family's fed, and I'm grateful to make a living making music, for as long as I've been able to sustain that," he says.

Cobb has never really chased superstardom, but he's never shied away from it, either. His music doesn't cater to country trends, but it's not a stretch to imagine his songs as radio singles.

Much like Ray Wylie Hubbard, an artist and songwriter Cobb admires, he's always flown just under the mainstream radar, with a stalwart fanbase and prominent place in Nashville, but less name recognition than some of his buzzier contemporaries.

Cobb recalls a response he once saw Hubbard give to a fan on social media, who praised him for "never selling out" and always "keeping it real."

"Ray Wylie responded with, 'Well, no one ever asked me to.' That's kind of how I feel," Cobb jokes.

But in one sense, fans should be grateful that Cobb has always kept a little under the radar, and not just because of the "cool factor" that comes with being a fan of an indie artist. His relationship with music carries an ongoing tension between "job" and "joy," and that tension is a common theme across all of his albums.

It's a relatable one, too: Most listeners know what it feels like to realize, now and again, that they've taken their blessings — health, family, a job they enjoy — for granted.

That theme emerges once again in Cobb's newest album, Ain't Rocked in a While, which revisits the rock and roll music he fell in love with as a teen just starting to play music.

"It's a real fine line / 'Tween pickin' for a livin', Lord / And pickin' for a lifetime," he sings in one track, "Even If It's Broke."

He wrote that line with Matt McDaniel, the lead electric guitarist for the Fixins, which is Cobb's live band and his in-studio band for this project. A close friend who's been playing with Cobb for a decade-and-a-half, McDaniel knows exactly what Cobb means when he talks about straddling the line between the grind and the joy of music.

"Sometimes it's like, 'Yeah, are we just picking for a living having fun, or are we gonna do this s--t forever?'" Cobb relates. "It's a common thread and a common theme because I am still living that thread, still threading that same needle."

Ain't Rocked in a While will bridge a gap between Cobb's studio recordings — which err towards acoustic, singer-songwriter stylings — and his groovier and louder live show. It's also a return to the classic rock songs he learned when he was singing in his first band ever, a group he formed with a friend who was a rock guitarist.

"He had me learning all these lyrics to all these old classic rock songs...Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC," Cobb remembers.

At the time, he didn't listen too closely to the lyrics. "I was just rocking to the groove, and to the riff," Cobb says.

But he returned to those same songs while drawing inspiration for Ain't Rocked in a While with a more experienced songwriter's ear, and was surprised by what he found. "It was sort of profound how profound those songs are, in meaning," he notes.

In turn, the songs Cobb wrote for Ain't Rocked in a While are kaleidoscopic. More than in earlier projects, he focused on riffs and grooves, making rock music that listeners can bob their head to.

But Cobb is a songwriter's songwriter, and everything he writes has a deeper level of lyrical meaning. Beneath the grooves and jams of Ain't Rocked in a While, this album is no different.

Case in point: "Beyond Measure" appears twice on the project. The first track is a piano interlude version of the song; it recurs as a full-band version on the 10th and final track on the album.

The choice to include both versions was conceptual, Cobb says.

"This isn't a concept album, but there is a theme to this album, and that theme is this," he explains. "In life, it doesn't matter what you're doing. For me personally it's ... chasing this thing that is music, but also trying to balance being a good dad, and a good husband, and just life."

"You can know how blessed you are, but sometimes you can, even knowing that, take it for granted," Cobb continues. "When you start thinking that way and feeling that way, it can feel a little lonesome."

The piano version of "Beyond Measure," with Cobb's voice unadorned by full-band production, represents that loneliness.

As the album goes on, and as life goes on, he — and hopefully, the listener too — start to realize that no one is alone as they're trying to strike that difficult life balance.

"We're all out here, singing or playing the same song together," he continues. "Which is why it is book-ended with a full-band version of the same song. Because that's what we're doing in this life."

"We are all rocking to the same song," Cobb concludes.